3.1.1

This dense and vivid passage reprises the opening of Bk. 2. (The beginnings of books of conf. are more often closely related to the conclusions of the books just finished, as at the junctures of 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 8/9, 10/11; cf. civ. 2.2, recapitulating the first book.). Here the opening paragraph recapitulates to facilitate forward motion, and so only seems retrospective rather than prospective.

BA 13.665-667 gives a detailed note on this passage, from which extracts are given under the lemmata below; they react against G. Wijdeveld, Vig. Chr. 10(1956), 231-235. BA 665: `Augustin en effet ne décrit pas l'expérience telle qu'il la vécut en son temps, mais bien telle qu'il la réfléchit et la juge en évêque et en philosophe.' This paragraph is so vivid and memorable that it is often treated as if it were narrative in content, when it is in reality a tissue of meditative abstractions.

oderam me: As often in Latin (as with English `hated'), oderam is not much stronger than `disliked' (E. Fraenkel, Horace [Oxford, 1957], 263). For the implications here (when is self-love `really' a form of self-hatred?), see O. O'Donovan, The Problem of Self-Love in Augustine (New Haven, 1980), esp. 37-59; but he does not discuss the present passage.

minus indigentem: Take the clause thus: `In the midst of the regio egestatis I suffered an indigentia that affected me deep within (thus secretiore), and so I hated the very thought of what I might be like if I did not suffer that indigentia (`me minus indigentem'), hence I was entirely averse to anything that might have had a good effect on me. I "hated" the one thing that was good, "in love" with "Love", foolishly.' Hence the desperate need to love wrongly below. en. Ps. 118. s. 1.1, `nam quisquis libidinibus deditus luxuria stuprisque corrumpitur, in hoc malo beatitudinem quaerit et se miserum putat, cum ad suae concupiscentiae voluptatem laetitiamque non pervenit, beatum vero non dubitat iactare cum pervenit.'

contactu: Touch is the sense to which sexual temptation appeals: see on 2.5.10.

si non haberent animam: G-M: `we do not speak of loving inanimate objects. A's meaning is that, even in this association, stained as it was with lust, he was seeking, however mistakenly, the satisfaction of a real soul hunger.' With the sentence that follows, it seems clear that he means that at this time, avid for contact with the sensible, he wanted to Love, and could not love what was without anima; hence, lust as the particular focus of his evil, the perverse parody of a central virtue. He could not stop loving, but he could only love in an evil way.

magis: The comma preceding introduced by Vega; magis occurs elsewhere at the beginning of a clause or extended phrase (1.6.8, et me talem fuisse magis mihi ipsi indicaverunt nescientes quam scientes nutritores mei; other examples at 1.9.15, 1.18.29, 3.1.1, 3.10.18, 4.15.26, 5.12.22, 5.14.25, 6.10.16, 9.4.7). Other editors (Knöll, Skut., Pell., Ver.) have put the comma after magis, (1) making `dulce . . . magis' a quasi-comparative (not impossible in later Latin, but not attested in conf.; for A.'s variations on traditional comparative forms, see Arts 43-45) and (2) reducing the affirmation to a single statement (`Love was sweeter if . . .'), breaking up the sequence (`Love was sweet, indeed even sweeter if . . .').

venam igitur amicitiae . . . obnubilabam: The wording brings us back to the opening of Bk. 2, reinforcing the prevalence of concupiscence in what has gone between. Cf. 2.2.2, `luminosus limes amicitiae' and `obnubilabant atque obfuscabant cor meum,' and 3.2.3, `vena amicitiae' (with context that makes clear that a channel for liquid is envisioned by the metaphor). The vena amicitiae is close in sense to the vena caritatis in similar context at b. coniug. 16.18 and Io. ep. tr. 6.2.

vinculum . . . nexibus: The attachment to sexual desire is often expressed as a bondage; see on 8.11.25. For `conligabar', cf. 8.1.2, `conligabar ex femina'; 8.8.20, `conligata vinculis' (again of sexual attachment, but more metaphorical).

ut caederer: To what is A. referring? He is at least deliberately taking upon himself the conventional ideas of the quarrels and the troubles of obsessed young lovers. That he uses hints of biblical language tacitly passes judgment on the relationship.

spectacula . . . imaginibus: Students were discouraged by the local authorities from too much spectacle-going: cod. theod. 14.9.1 (12 March 370), `neve spectacula frequentius adeant'. The same law declared that indiscipline could be punished (at least at Rome and Constantinople) by whippings and forced rustication. A similar moralizing restriction was enjoined upon the young Julian by his tutor Mardonius (Julian, misopogon 351c-d), and Libanius (ep. 976.) thought the theater a distraction for students. A.'s remarks here make it clear that it was the enacted stories that appealed to him most, as later the circus (6.7.11-12) and the gladiatorial combats (6.8.13) would appeal to Alypius; these seem to have been the three main classes of entertainment available to A. (and classed by him as spectacula): s. 198.3, `delectantur nugatorio spectaculo et turpitudinibus variis theatrorum, insania circi, crudelitate amphitheatri, certaminibus animosis eorum qui pro pestilentibus hominibus lites et contentiones usque ad inimicitias suscipiunt, pro mimo, pro histrione, pro pantomimo [these three are from the theatra], pro auriga [from the circus], pro venatore [from the gladiatorial amphitheater].'1

G-M, Theiler P.u.A. 60, and BA all attempt to situate this text in the tradition of ancient discussions of the emotional impact of the theater. There is nothing here in conf. to connect A.'s views with any of the surviving discussions, but he is surely their heir at some distance (at civ. 8.13 he even invokes Plato's suspicion of poets in support of his views). Dominant is surely his own notion of the connection to curiositas. His works nevertheless (including the passages just cited from civ.) offer some glimpses of what the life of the spectacula entailed in the Carthage of his day. See also en. Ps. 103. s. 1.13 (`videtis quid faciat civitas ubi abundant spectacula: in agro securius loquerer'), 146.4, 147.8, s. 241.5 (quoted on 1.13.20, `Aeneae nescio cuius'). Alfaric 32-33 offers additional texts.

imaginibus: Cf. `imaginum' below, and `imaginarie' at 3.2.3 immediately following. The counterfoils of reality, imagines loom in conf. in two ways. (1) Not used until the present passage, the word and its corresponding verb imaginare are common from here on (but especially here in Bk. 3--the book of the temptations to vision, and in Bk. 10 [41x from 10.8.12-10.25.36] in the discussion of memory, which is the faculty of the soul replete with imagines [10.8.12, `campos et lata praetoria memoriae, ubi sunt thesauri innumerabilium imaginum']), as the appearances that both suggest a reality beyond appearance and at the same time veil it from direct sight. (See further on 4.10.15.) (2) In a few contexts, the word marks the special relationship with God that is authorized by the text of Gn. 1.26, `faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram.' This topic is first introduced briefly at 3.7.12, recurs strongly at 6.3.4-6.4.5, appears at 7.7.11, and then returns for full development from 13.22.32 to the end of the work. In the present context, note that imagines recur as powerful incitements to concupiscentia carnis when that temptation is reviewed in Bk. 10: 10.30.41f. In that light, `fomitibus' here is probably further explanation of `imaginibus': `images that called to mind my misery and further kindled the fire of my libido'.

mirabilis: mirabilis C D O S Skut. Ver.: miserabilis G Maur. Knöll Pel.Miserabilis is thinly attested and the facilior lectio besides. Elsewhere in conf. madness itself can be marvelous (4.15.26, `mira dementia'), and a variety of other abstract substantives (notably both continentia at 6.10.16 and abstinentia at 10.31.46) are mirabilis: see also 4.4.8, 4.14.21, 9.4.12, 9.6.14.

miseria . . . misericordia: Wordplay concentrates the effects of one form of curiositas, extended through 3.2.4. The real fall through curiositas of this book will be the lure of Manicheism, but here at the outset we get a self-contained display of another dimension of that same fault, not unlike--with different rhetorical proportions--the pear-theft from Bk. 2. He interpreted misericordia etymologically: c. Adim. 11., `ex eo appellatam misericordiam dicunt, quod miserum cor faciat dolentis aliena miseria'; sim. at mor. 1.27.53, civ. 9.5.

The context offers `ergo amentur dolores aliquando' a few lines below in 3.2.3, bracketing (with `ergo amantur et dolores' beginning that paragraph) the demonstration (with no mention of lacrimae). On palaeographical probability, the reading could be that of AH: gaudens lacrimat lacrimae, but the want of a subject for amantur could inspire haplography, and the presence of lacrimae robs the `et' before `dolores' of its emphatic force (see en. Ps. 4 cited in notes on 1.1.1). On weight of MSS, one would incline to the reading of O2SBPZ: gaudens. lacrimae. (Ergo in first position in its clause is less frequent in conf. [26x against 167x post-positioned], but well attested [as esp. here with iteration later].) But on content, the authentic reading was that of CDEFGVO1, gaudens lacrimat ergo; a simple error, repeated later and encouraged by the context (the oxymoron of `gaudens lacrimat' would discourage reading the two words together, taken with the availability of `amantur et' to attract a subject), created `lacrimae'. lacrimat lacrimae is haplography reinventing the same error. (On tears in conf., see on 3.2.4.)

anima mea: This brief apostrophe to his own soul is repeated in a much longer and more complex passage: 4.11.16 - 4.12.19 (see on 4.11.16), and see also 10.6.10.

tutore: God as tutor also at 10.4.6, 12.16.23. Taken with `deo patrum nostrorum' here, the appeal is to the first person of the trinity. The word is otherwise rare in both A. and scripture, and there are no useful parallels. Note, however, that the word occurs a number of times in civ. (1.3, 3.9, 3.13, 3.20, 18.41) applied to the `pagan' divinities to whom Rome look in vain for protection (infrequent but classical: CIL 14.25, `Iovi tutori').

superexaltato in omnia saecula: Cf. Dan. 3.52, `benedictus es domine, deus patrum nostrorum, et laudabile et superexaltatum in omnibus saeculis' --the first words of the Song of the Three Children, i.e., the first words spoken by young men of virtue trapped in a pit of fire from which, through divine assistance, they will escape; cf. the `torrentem picis' above.

congaudebam amantibus: G-M: `The plays to which A. refers were evidently not of a quality to suggest the Aristotelian point of view.' (!)

misereor: misereor C D G O Maur. Ver. Pell.: miseror S Knöll Skut. Vega
The question here is morphology rather than semantics. On available evidence, the following may be said of A.'s practice. In conf. passages where the reading is not in dispute, misereor or its derivatives appear 22x, miseror et al. 8x; but of those miseror appears 6x in perfect and imperative forms, where it has euphony on its side. In imperative, imperfect, and present forms (both ind. and sub.), the prevalence of misereor stands at 19x to 2x.

caritatis: Second occurrence in conf. here, first where caritas is a quality of human actions (earlier: 2.6.13, `neque blandius est aliquid tua caritate'); first with scriptural echo not until 4.4.7, `caritate diffusa in cordibus nostris'. 34x in all.

(misericors) est: where esset would be normal in view of the next line; but A. wishes to grant the preposterous hypothesis, to emphasize the distastefulness of the conclusion to which it leads. Vega puts a question mark at the end of the next sentence (after `misereatur'), unnecessarily.

3.2.4

miser . . . amabam: Cf. 3.1.1, `amare amabam . . . quaerebam quid amarem'. The intervening exposition of his reaction to the spectacula makes it clear that the quest for love leads to dolor. Cf. 1.20.31, where the quest for voluptates ends in dolores.

lacrimae: A.'s tears over the spectacula are his first adult tears (as infans and puer, he wept regularly: 1.6.7, `flere autem offensiones carnis meae'; 1.13.21, `et flebam Didonem extinctam'), but they are not his last. Episodes of weeping in conf.: Monnica's tears for A., 3.11.19-3.12.21 (see on 3.11.19, `fleret'); the death of A.'s friend, 4.4.9-4.7.12; Monnica abandoned at Carthage, 5.8.15; the garden scene at Milan, 8.12.28-8.12.30; A.'s emotional reaction to the hymns and psalms of the church not long thereafter, 9.6.14, (cf. the tears shed in the Cassiciacum dialogues: ord. 1.8.22 and 1.10.30, c. acad. 2.7.18, sol. 1.14.26 and 2.1.1); the death of Monnica, 9.11.27-9.12.33. The `confessional' parts of Bk. 10 speak of tears and weeping (10.1.1, 10.28.39 [`laetitiae meae flendae'], 10.40.65 [`et resorbeor solitis et teneor et multum fleo']), but Bks. 11 through 13 are free of tears except for two mentions of ways in which tears will pass away (12.11.13, `si iam factae sunt ei lacrimae suae panis'; 13.13.14, `transierint lacrimae'). The most important tears that he had not yet shed were the `lacrimas confessionis' of 7.21.27. Weeping and prayer explicitly connected: 5.8.15 (of Monnica), 8.12.28-29 (the garden scene), 9.6.14, 9.7.16, 10.4.5. On tears in Christian prayer in antiquity, see J. Balogh, Didaskaleion n. s. 4 (1926), 10-21, on the way licit tears for A. draw us nearer to God, not to earthly things, and with numerous good texts from Christian antiquity.

spectare: the detachment of curiositas enables the soul, already fallen through concupiscentia carnis, to participate vicariously in deformities yet more perverse than those in which it really participates.

3.3.5

et circumvolabat . . . misericordia tua: The summary here turns from the encapsulated exemplum of curiositas in the theater to the wider issues of his life at this time, and so underlining the persistence of concupiscentia carnis ( cf. `concupiscere'). The judgmental present intrudes only in the apostrophe `o tu praegrandis . . .'

longe: Cf. `ad longe' below, with reversal of point of view; on longe elsewhere, see on 1.18.28.

The word sacrilegus (rare in scripture, only 2x in NT [Act. 19.37, Rom. 2.22], in both cases deriving from Gk. e(erosule/w, `to rob a temple'; already in Tertullian) is another example of the surprisingly large vocabulary of `pagan' religion taken over with little modification by Christianity.

The Gk. original of the word came over to Latin by two different paths at about the same time: as a technical term of Platonic philosophy with Apuleius, and as a pejorative in Latin translations of scripture (and in Christian writers from Tertullian on). It is difficult to see any distinction for A. between daemon (in conf. only at 4.2.3, 9.7.16, in the form daemonibus) and daemonium (in conf. here and at 3.3.6 and 8.2.4), not least because the two words share a nom./acc. plural (daemonia, as at 4.2.3).

We will never know what A. really thought of demons, even as we catalogue his pronouncements. One document takes us a little closer to actuality, his divin. daem. (406/11?). This pamphlet begins as transcript of a discussion that took place in A.'s episcopal secretarium before divine service during the octave of Easter. The laici with whom he was speaking (divin. daem. 1.1) probably included some newly baptized at the Easter vigil. The discussion (and the more connected exposition that follows it) assumes in explicit material terms that demons exist, that they perform actions in the material world, and that they have various advantages (including a light, ethereal body that has keener senses and swifter motion than anything human or animal, and a wealth of ancient experience besides that enables them to predict future events more accurately than we [divin. daem. 3.7-4.7]) over mortals in the attempt to know the future. They can also foretell events that they will themselves cause. The least that must be admitted is that the bishop catered to a belief that he had no particular polemical or apologetical reason for accepting. His limit is reached only by the naive suggestion from one of his interlocutors that the ancient religious rites dictated by the libri pontificales were in some way licit and approved of God (divin. daem. 2.5), and that it is only secret and illicit sacrifice by night to demons that merits censure. A.'s theoretical discussion of demons is more familiar (esp. civ. 8.14f) but brings us perhaps less close to the actuality.

This incident is regularly extracted by biographers and commentators to capture the flavor of A.'s disorderly life. In context, two features become noteworthy: (1) He was a churchgoer in these pre-Manichean days at Carthage. (2) The lines before and after make it an example of the way in which God's punishing flail was never far away; the specifics of the incident and the concrete form that punishment took is left to our imagination.

agere negotium procurandi fructus mortis: A. shies away from this act with recourse not merely to euphemism, but to the construction of this elaborately ambiguous but unambiguously judgmental phrase, which has the ring of scriptural authority. But no plausible parallel can be found other than Rom. 7.5, `cum essemus in carne, passiones peccatorum quae per legem erant operabantur in membris nostris ut fructificarent morti.'

misericordia mea, deus meus: Ps. 58.18, `deus meus misericordia mea'; Ps. 143.2, `misericordia mea'. Knauer 118: `3.1.1 und 3.3.5--sie rahmte die Verurteilung der falschen misericordia ein.' Virtually the same phrase (`deus meus, misericordia mea') occurred at 3.1.1 as a guide to the passions of his early days at Carthage; now that they have been recounted and understood, the citation is repeated with this asseveration and the emphatic `praegrandis'.

3.3.6

For the first time, the third temptation of 1 Jn. 2.16, ambitio saeculi, exercises an influence directly on A. (in Bk. 1, it was his parents whose ambition directed his education). These opening paragraphs set a stage for the intellectual drama presented in the rest of the book. Their central focus is A.'s reaction to the spectacula, and hence his curiositas, but both of the other two Johannine temptations have been given cameo roles. A. paints himself both grasping and detached, and not a little vulnerable to outside influence.

-- from Ovid's description, s.d. 4 April, of the ludi Matris Magnae; though A. never mentions Ovid and barely cites him (see Hagendahl 213-214: he may know the story of Pyramus from O.'s metamorphoses, and there is one probable echo of met. 1 in civ. 22.24), it was at about this time in A.'s life that he attended the rites of the Magna Mater at Carthage. The phrase here may hint that he looked into Ovid to learn more of those rites. The context reveals that the memory was associated for A. with his adolescent passion for the spectacula, and suggests again the connection between the stage and non-Christian religion that explains some of A.'s own hostility to these memories: see civ. 2.4, quoted above on 3.2.2, `spectacula . . . imaginibus'.

caecitas: Cf. 2.3.7, where caecitas is also the metaphor for a heedlessness inspired by camaraderie.

typho: A leit-motif for ambitious pride; see on 7.9.13 (`typho turgidum'); often associated with `swollenness'; with tumidus or tumesco at civ. 11.33, c. Iul. 4.3.28, en. Ps. 149.10, s. 4.30.33.

remotus omnino ab eversionibus: In ep. 93., addressed to his old school-friend Vincentius, now (408) a bishop of the small Rogatist sect of Donatists, the young A. appears similarly restrained (see on 2.1.1).

eversionibus: At 5.12.22, the eversiones of the next generation of students (perhaps 10 years later) so disturb A. the teacher that he explains his departure for Rome in part as an attempt to escape to a more peaceful academic atmosphere. Cf. vera rel. 40.75, `his [angelis iracundiae] similes sunt homines qui gaudent miseriis alienis et risus sibi ac ludicra spectacula exhibent vel exhiberi volunt eversionibus et erroribus aliorum.' The theme of Bk. 3 is curiositas, which feeds on the spectacula and leads to error: there is thus an odd appropriateness to the ways of the eversores. The words eversio/eversor have a legal use of squandering paternal property (Tac. ann. 6.17, `eversio rei familiaris', cod. theod. 12.6.1), the sort of thing that a prodigal son might do, or that one who saw himself nervously as a possible prodigal might frown upon; in one case, the devil is `fidei eversor' (s. Guelf. 31.1) and in another perhaps inadvertently revealing case, Christ is seen by the Jews as an `eversor legis' (Io. ev. tr. 20.2), though more common is a use A. follows elsewhere, of famous generals who sacked ancient cities (e.g., civ. 1.6, `Fabius, Tarentinae urbis eversor'; cf. civ. 1.34, 3.15); evidently a vivid expression, whether it is merely A.'s term of abuse or an authentic piece of local slang. On student life in this period generally (mixing evidence from east and west), see A. Müller, Philologus 69(1910), 292-317.

pudore impudenti: Oxymoron heightens the perversity of his values, as before. But here the love of comradeship that led him into sin in the pear-theft seems to have faded a little. He still enjoys the comrades, but does not share their wrong-doing (which has taken on a specific malice directed against other people). The passage is almost exculpatory, but now his sinfulness separates him from his fellows.

daemoniorum: See above on 3.3.5. To go by this account, A. was cautious about invoking these powers. He resists a suggestion at 4.2.3 and sees them defeated by the power of the relics of Gervasius and Protasius at 9.7.16. Here they offer a threatening simile for the deeds of his boisterous friends. Cf. `diabolicum'.

3.4.7

A. reads philosophy, and turns (3.5.9) to scripture, ending in frustration. The same sequence of readings occurs at 7.9.13, in changed circumstances, with a different result.

A.'s dialogue with Cicero is a subtext of the next books of conf. In 46/5 BC, Cicero wrote the main body of his philosophical uvre, in the order clearly recorded at his div. 2.1.1, a text A. knew (civ. 3.17): Hortensius, academica, de finibus bonorum et malorum, Tusculanae disputationes, de natura deorum. Here in Bk. 3, A. reports his encounter with the Hortensius; in 5.10.19, he turns his attention to the Academics; at 6.16.26, he and Alypius discuss between themselves the issues `de finibus bonorum et malorum', where A. says he would have sided with the Epicureans (cf. Cic. fin., Bks. 1-2) except that he was oppressed by `metus mortis' --the first subject of the Tusculans. Till then there seems a clear pattern, a hint that A.'s philosophical investigations parallel those of Cicero. It is in Bk. 7 that new masters, the Platonists and Paul, are found, but even beyond that traces of the Ciceronian sequence may be descried: the Tusculans match in spirit and to some extent in substance (n.b. particularly Tusc. 2, `de tolerando dolore', and cf. 9.2.4 and 9.3.5 on A.'s ailments--the pain in his chest and a bad toothache) the discussions at Cassiciacum, especially as both lead to a doctrine concerning the beata vita, which is also a central concern of conf. 10 (see on 9.4.7 for more parallels). To urge a parallel between the last three books of conf. and Cicero's three books de natura deorum is obviously to go beyond the bounds of evidence: but to consider the possibility is to measure not only the similarities, but also the divergences, between Cicero and his most imaginative disciple. (For a similar coordination between the progress of the text of conf. and a different authoritative text, see the remarks in notes on 8.1.1 concerning the Pauline echoes in Bk. 8.)

Modern readers are generally willing to infer from A.'s enthusiasm--we have not much else to go on--that the Hortensius was a powerful and important book. A salutary minority view comes from O'Meara 57-58, who belittles the Hortensius and thinks that the effect here is all that of A.'s personality, not the book itself: `If it was a great book, how explain its comparative obscurity until Augustine read it, and its eventual disappearance? . . . Or was it after all just an ordinary book that happened to set off a flame in Augustine's mind when that mind was prepared to be inflamed?' Even A. was willing to remember that Cicero was an orator who praised philosophy, not a philosopher per se: trin. 14.9.12, `ita ille tantus orator cum philosophiam praedicaret recolens ea quae a philosophis acceperat et praeclare ac suaviter explicans . . .'; cf. civ. 2.27, `philosophaster Tullius'; on the other hand, his contemporaries certainly knew the text (ep. Sec. 3 shows that A.'s Manichee critics had it).

Since the reading of texts is so important for A. and others in conf., it is worth sketching a short catalogue of readings explicitly reported: the Aeneid (1.13.20), Hortensius and scripture here, 5.3.3, `multa philosophorum', 7.9.13, `platonicorum libros', 7.21.27ff, Paul (esp. 8.12.29-30, garden scene), 9.4.8, Psalms esp. Ps. 4, and Gn. 1 in Bks. 11-13 (with most of Bk. 12 [12.14.17-12.32.43] discussing proper methods of reading). Reading as solution to his problems: 3.12.21, `ipse legendo reperiet quis ille sit error et quanta impietas.' The courtiers at Trier read the life of Antony (8.6.15); Ambrose is a model of reading at 6.3.3 (silent) and 6.3.4 (public exegesis: and already at 5.14.24); and the role of the reader in relation to conf. is frequently evoked and discussed: e.g., 10.3.3f, 12.26.36. See R. Flores, Aug. Stud. 6(1975), 1-13.

Bks. 2 and 3 have depicted the adolescent A. as a particular prey to sexual temptation and transgression. It is important to the structure of conf. that he not encounter--to our eyes--decisive advice to elect continentia until Bk. 8, where continentia is the focus of the garden scene in Milan. Signs there (see on 8.7.17) hint that the issue, and the possibility of continentia, were not new to him. But he makes no mention here that one of the things we know he would have found in the Hortensius was just this advice: frg. 81M (c. Iul. 4.14.72 and 5.10.42, partly corroborated by Nonius 412.8 Lindsay--given here in form conflated from the two passages in c. Iul.): `an vero voluptates corporis expetendae, quae vere et graviter a Platone dictae sunt inlecebrae esse atque escae malorum? quae enim confectio est valetudinis, quae deformatio coloris et corporis, quod turpe damnum, quod dedecus quod non evocetur atque eliciatur voluptate? cuius motus, ut quisque est maximus, ita est inimicissimus philosophiae. congruere enim cum cogitatione magna voluptas corporis non potest.' Sim. at frg. 74M (Nonius 33.7 Lindsay) and frg. 80M (Nonius 503.15 Lindsay).

This paragraph and the next are the focus of an unpublished study by E. Feldmann, Der Einfluß des Hortensius und des Manichäismus auf das Denken des jungen Augustinus von 373 (Diss., Münster, 1975), with detailed commentary on these paragraphs at 1.381-513. The work merits publication, perhaps in briefer compass. In the meantime, Feldmann's note at Atti-1986, 316-330, usefully presses the question, earlier raised by Theiler (P.u.A. 5n1), of how far A. read the Hortensius`mit den Augen des Neuplatonikers'. Better to say that A. read all of Cicero with late antique eyes.2

But though his usage is diverse, it is hard to charge inconsistency; at c. acad. 1.3.7 A. could speak of Cicero noster and at c. acad. 3.18.41 of `Tullius noster', while at conf.1.16.25 he introduces a direct quotation from Tusc. with the expression `ex eodem pulvere hominem clamantem et dicentem'; in 413, `philosophaster Tullius' (civ. 2.27); from about the same time, Io. ev. tr. 58.3, `cuiusdam saecularis auctoris verba laudantur . . . ille homo eloquentissimus'; in the fourth book of doctr. chr. (not written in this form until many years after conf.), Cicero becomes quidam again: doctr. chr. 4.10.24, `unde ait quidam'; 4.12.27, `dixit enim quidam'; but 4.17.34, `ipse Romani auctor eloquii'. At civ. 14.18, a quotation from Tusc. is introduced by a quidam juxtaposed with high praise from a Roman source: `sicut ait etiam quidam Romani maximus auctor eloquii' (Lucan 7.62-63). See also on 1.13.20, `Aeneae nescio cuius'. Of the commentators, BA comes closest; there is something slightly arch about the expression, but the derogatory tone is no more than is, surely, Cicero's due; in an address to God, the expression signifies the vanity of a fame like that of Cicero in the presence of God.

To admire someone's pectus is then to praise him for sincerity and disingenuousness--for an ability to match words to thoughts truthfully and truly. In this light, other passages of conf. take the eye (7.5.7, `talia volvebam pectore misero,'8.8.19, `illuc me abstulerat tumultus pectoris,'9.9.21, `docente te magistro intimo in schola pectoris'), as does the frequency with which pectus is used in a less explicit metaphorical sense for the seat of feelings close to speech (2.3.6, 5.9.17, 6.1.1, 6.2.2, 6.16.26, 7.2.3, 8.2.4, 8.4.9, 10.42.67).

One moralizing interpretation is congruent and should be kept in mind: Gn. c. man. 2.17.26, `nomine enim pectoris significatur superbia, quia ibi dominatur impetus animi: nomine autem ventris significatur carnale desiderium, quia haec pars mollior sentitur in corpore.' If that passage is taken as determinative, then to criticize Cicero's pectus is to accuse him of excessive ambitio saeculi: not an unverisimilar charge in Cicero's case.

philosophiam: Though the early A. did not scruple to use the word of Christian doctrine (e.g., beata v. 1.1), he uses it in conf. only here and in the next paragraph, and only in a sense that is at least ambivalent. There are philosophi further on in conf. (but only as far as 8.2.3), but again only figures ambivalent at best and not identifiably Christian. In Ambrose, the word never applies to Christian doctrine or life, though that sense is not uncommon in earlier Christian writers (see Madec, Saint Ambroise 41, noting the one possible exception).

Hortensius: The majority of references and allusions to the Hortensius in A. occur at Cassiciacum; from 387-413, there are only repetitions of previously quoted passages; new and important fragments occur in late books of trin. (416ff) and in c. Jul. (421). His reading of the Hortensius lingered in his mind for half a century, ever vivid where he gives a long quotation on the mind's ascent to God in the conclusion to the fourteenth book of trin. (14.19.26). That fragment clearly shows that the philosphia with which the Hortensius inspired A. was a philosophy of the mind's ascent, shaping his taste when he came to the Platonists years later: note here `surgere coeperam ut ad te redirem' and at 3.4.8, `quomodo ardebam, deus meus, quomodo ardebam revolare a terrenis ad te!'

There is considerable literature; see first Testard 1.19-39, then Hagendahl 79-94 (fragments/testimonia) and 486-497 (discussion). Of specialist studies on A.'s use of the Hortensius, the most recent is R. Russell in Aug. Stud. 7(1976), 59-68, and cf. Feldmann's dissertation cited above. The Hortensius is quoted by the fragment numbers of Müller's Teubner edition, but of interest is also the work of M. Ruch, L'Hortensius de Ciceron: Histoire et reconstitution (Paris, 1958), with texts (but non-standard numbers of fragments).

mutavit affectum meum: Cf. 10.3.4, `mutans animam meam fide et sacramento tuo'. Brown 169: `An intellectual event, such as the reading of a new book, is registered only, as it were, from the inside, in terms of the sheer excitement of the experience, of its impact on Augustine's feelings: of the Hortensius of Cicero, for instance, he would never say "it changed my views" but, so characteristically, "it changed my way of feeling" --mutavit affectum meum.'

maternis: The word strikes sharply and unexpectedly: the last we heard, it was Patricius who was struggling to provide the funds (2.3.5, `animositate magis quam opibus patris'). Now we hear of his death only in an ablative absolute. The natural interpretation of the present passage is that M. succeeded to control of the property.

annum aetatis undevicensimum: A.'s nineteenth year ran from Nov. 372 to Nov. 373; his father thus died as early as late 370, as late as 371; the episode of Bk. 2 (in his sixteenth year) fell 369/70 (2.3.6). Incautious narrators often postdate these events by assigning them to the year following A.'s nineteenth birthday, i.e., his annum aetatis vicensimum.

locutio . . . quod loquebatur: See above on lingua/pectus; distrust of showy outward form in default of significant content is a leit-motif in the upward progress of A.'s conversion; he puts his disappointment with Faustus in those terms at 5.6.10, and finds himself vulnerable to Ambrose when the bishop's eloquence turns out to harbor a more valuable truth (5.14.24).

3.4.8

This paragraph must be allowed to have its surprises for us. Did A. at age 18 consciously hanker after the flight from earthly things to God--and did he do so in those words (not so different from those of the Platonists that would, he alleges, come as a surprising revelation more than a decade later)?

A.'s preference for the nomen Christi is not completely surprising, but must have been a mildly unusual reaction to this particular Ciceronian text. It was not entirely obvious (in spite of his `itaque' opening 3.5.9) that the reader of the Hortensius would turn first to scripture to pursue the quest encouraged there.

The spirit of religious enthusiasm is clearly meant to portray the event (how faithfully, we cannot tell) as the forerunner of all the attempts A. will recount at an intellectual ascent to God (first concerted effort: 4.13.20ff). See du Roy 25-29.

revolare: The metaphor of flight, common among non-Christian speculations of this period for the salvific journey occurs only once otherwise in conf., and then to emphasize its metaphorical quality: 1.18.28, `non . . . filius ille tuus . . . avolavit pinna visibili'.

apud te est enim sapientia: Job 12.13 (VL), `apud eum est sapientia et virtus.' The topic of philosophy evokes from A. a scriptural tag, to which is appended, by an autem, the first element in a brief synopsis of the contents of the Hortensius.

sunt qui seducant per philosophiam: The caution was a constant of protreptic, e.g., Boethius, cons. 1. P3.7, on the `epicureum vulgus et stoicum.'

manifestatur: A favored word for A. (counting verb, adj., and related forms, 28x in conf., comparably frequent in other works), as in scripture (e.g., vb. manifesto 52x in Vg.)

A. `reads' a pre-Christian philosophical text and claims to find therein a message he thinks he can present fairly using the ipsissima verba of scripture. This device will recur with notable effect at 7.9.13ff (see notes there); the difference here is that at age 18 he did not know the scriptural text to juxtapose with the philosophical one (see `et ego illo tempore' below).

delectabar: See on 1.1.1 for delectatio; here, as commonly in conf., its presence is the sign that a moral suasion from outside has struck sparks and will have effect--here, mainly for the good.

quaererem: The word is a reminder to compare this attempted ascent to `Wisdom' with the pattern prescribed at 1.1.1; the obvious defect here is that there has been no antedecent praedicatio, hence no accurate knowledge of what A. was seeking. Thus A. falls into the trap foretold at 1.1.1: `aliud enim pro alio potest invocare nesciens'.

quod nomen Christi non erat ibi: At age 18, not yet a Manichee, encountering philosophy in the attenuated and mostly notional form of the Ciceronian protreptic (which he read without context or philosophical guidance and instruction), A. had the Christian expectations of his environment in a pronounced form. What the Manichees had that Cicero did not was just that for which he now pined: the nomen Christi. The phrase is common in the first books of civ., and cf. cons. ev. 1.14.22, where A. thinks of heretics and `pagans' who are so impressed with the figure of Christ that they use his name on their pseudonymous works: `ita sentiunt etiam inimici Christi ad suadendum quod proferunt contra doctrinam Christi nullum sibi esse pondus auctoritatis, si non habeat nomen Christi.') For the structure of conf. it is important that it is the second person of the trinity whose absence he feels and seeks to remedy (see on 7.18.24 and 8.12.29). (See also c. Faust. 13.17, quoted below in notes on 3.6.10, `viscum'.)

The depth of A.'s Christian attachments at the time he encountered the Manichees is hard to measure, but there is one revealing text: at c. ep. fund. 8.9, he tells how the Manichees played down the Pascha, because it was only seeming passion, and played up their own feast of the Bema, because it was real: `hoc enim nobis erat in illa bematis celebritate gratissimum, quod pro pascha frequentabatur, quoniam vehementius desiderabamus illum diem festum subtracto alio qui solebat esse dulcissimus.'3

3.5.9

The encounter with Cicero leads to A.'s first reported direct encounter with scripture, which disappoints. He could not accept in an appropriate sense what he approached in an inappropriate way. He recounts his pride, and his disdain for the literary quality of the text, and no more (what he read he leaves unstated); at least one of his problems with the substance of scripture may be surmised (cf. on `inclinare cervicem' below), but that is not his concern here. His approach to Manicheism came from a bad reading of scripture, tainted by curiosity and underlying pride. We do not see him approach scripture again until 5.11.21, when he begins to get an inkling from Elpidius that things might be other than they seemed. (Bear in mind that access to copies of the scriptural texts was not easy and universal. The reading recounted here may have been his first opportunity to approach the texts seriously.) Another report on his disappointment: util. cred. 6.13, `nihil me existimare prudentius, castius, religiosius, quam sunt illae scripturae omnes quas testamenti veteris nomine catholica ecclesia retinet. miraris, novi. non enim dissimulare possum longe aliter nobis fuisse persuasum. sed nihil est profecto temeritatis plenius, quae nobis tunc pueris [see duab. an. 15.24 quoted below] inerat, quam quorumque librorum expositores deserere, qui eos se tenere ac discipulis tradere posse profitentur, et eorum sententiam requirere ab his qui conditoribus illorum atque auctoribus acerbissimum nescio qua cogente causa bellum indixerunt.'

ecce video: Courcelle, Recherches 38n6, takes `non enim sicut modo loquor . . .' here as proof that in this line `ecce video' is only a manner of speech; hence he wants to take the `ecce audio' of the garden scene (8.12.29) likewise. Here `ecce video' is true present (cf. the next sentence), whereas in 8.12.29`ecce audio' is historic present.

The description of scripture, in terms reminiscent of the theophany of a goddess, is curious and forceful. One must bow the head to enter, but then the space revealed opens out in height and mystery. `Tumor' below answers `humilem' here, and `interiora' to `velatam'.

On s. 51 cf. Cour. Recherches 61-62 (with 62n2 on the use here of puer to describe A. at age 18). He goes further (63) to say that the `principale difficulté sur laquelle ait achoppé le jeune Augustin' was the discordance of the nativity stories and the genealogies. The Manichees made much of this (cf. Alfaric 199-203), for if they could impugn the nativity, they could dispense with the virgin birth and the physical incarnation of God. (Such criticism was regarded later by A. as an attempt to play upon curiositas to lead the naive astray: cons. ev. 2.1 promises to discuss the relations of the gospel narratives `ne quid ex hoc in fide christiana offendiculi patiantur qui curiosiores quam capaciores sunt, quod non utcumque perlectis sed quasi diligentius perscrutatis evangelicis libris inconvenientia quaedam et repugnantia se deprehendisse existimantes magis ea contentiose obiectanda quam prudenter consideranda esse arbitrantur.' Manichean tactics are more explicitly but more briefly described at agon. 4.4.)

But it goes too far to call this the principal difficulty--there were others, and to judge by the analysis he gives in a few paragraphs of the threads that bound him to Manicheism, others were equally pressing. The retrospective selection of questions undermining the historical incarnation is consistent, on the other hand, with a central feature of conf.: from 7.9.14 through Bk. 8, the central issue is A.'s attempt to find a place--and the right place--for the incarnate Christ in his theology. If we are justified in reading anything of s. 51 into the narrative here, it is that the mature A. thought that it was lack of faith in the incarnate Christ that sent him astray in youth. (At 1.11.17, his childhood religion did contain the incarnation [`per humilitatem domini dei nostri descendentis'], but was not taken to its logical conclusion in baptism.)

At doctr. chr. 2.8.12ff, A. outlines the proper way to approach scripture, which has the effect of offering indirect negative commentary on his approach here. He emphasizes reading all of canonical scripture, avoiding non-canonical books, emphasizing first `praecepta vivendi vel regulae credendi' (2.9.14), and putting off more obscure passages for later consideration.

turgidus fastu: See on 7.9.13, `typho turgidum', of the unnamed individual who procured for him the platonicorum libri (that individual, at a time when A. is reading philosophy and turning to scripture, has the qualities that made A. a bad reader here); cf. 3.3.6, `tumebam typho' (--> here, `tumor meus').

The extensive food metaphor reflects the practice of the Manichean elect, who consumed particles of the divine in their banquets. At 3.1.1, a parallel use of metaphor (`famis mihi erat') marked A.'s isolation from authentic nourishment; here now he ingests all manner of false victuals. The emphasis on phantasmata is likewise apt: curiositas has led him into a world of images--eye-food, images of things that never existed. The paragraph thus moves from imagery drawn from concupiscentia carnis (wolfish feeding on food that does not satisfy) to imagery drawn from concupiscentia oculorum (greedy gazing at phantasmata that are hollow and empty): all against a backdrop of empty words.

How far A. penetrated into the cult is far from clear; only in Italy does he suggest that he had to do with the elect (5.10.18), and even there he never became one. Near the end of his life, he will put together a sketch of Manicheism (at haer. 46) that includes the charge that the elect took the eucharist sprinkled with semen (interjecting the intriguing note that the Manichees deny the practice but claim that it is done by other people who claim to be Manichees), this on the evidence of an eleven year old girl from Carthage (hence, though most of haer. is derivative, the charge probably comes from within A.'s own ken, whether before or after his separation from the sect). Similarly at c. Fort. 3., A. says that he has heard that the Manichees celebrate eucharist, but as an auditor he never saw it himself. For the possibility that he thought of becoming one of the elect, see on 5.7.13, `ceterum conatus omnis meus'. N.B.: The Manichees A. knew denied the efficacy of baptism by water (cf. A. haer. 46.17). If there had been any inclination on A.'s part to take that sacrament then (aged 18) or not long after, this Manichee rejection undoubtedly helped postpone it. This had the unexpected effect of avoiding theological scruples later as to the validity of an earlier baptism, and made the sacrament itself the issue of A.'s crisis recounted in Bk. 8.

For fuller treatments, recent works complement each other in various ways. Most accessible in English, with narrative ranging far beyond A.'s period, is S. N. C. Lieu, Manichaeism (Manchester, 1985). The most exciting work on the origins and early history of Manicheism has been the rediscovery and edition of the Cologne Mani-Codex (A. Henrichs, L. Koenen, and C. Römer, Der Kölner Mani-Kodex [Opladen, 1988], critical edition of the complete text with references to numerous earlier publications since the codex was discovered). See generally A. Henrichs, HSCP 83(1979), 339-367, and for the import for Augustinian studies, L. Koenen, Illinois Class. Stud. 3(1978), 154-195. More directly applicable are the works of F. Decret: Aspects du Manichéisme dans l'Afrique Romaine (Paris 1970), dealing mainly with c. Fort., c. Faust., and c. Fel., and his L'Afrique Manichéene (IVe - Ve siècles) (Paris, 1978), founded on a study of the other anti-Manichean works of A. See also P. Brown, JRS 59(1969), 92-103 (= Brown, Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine [London, 1972], 94-118). A.'s attacks on Manicheism are placed in a wider late Roman (both Christian and non-Christian context) by the articles of S. N. C. Lieu, Bull. Rylands 68 (1986), 434-472; 69(1986), 235-275. Manicheism in Africa is a fourth-century phenomenon, but its extent is hard to grasp; see Decret, L'Afrique; note especially his observation that there is no mention of the Manichees in Africa owning church buildings or slaves (though [Decret L'Afrique 203] in Turkestan they had veritable monasteries). It is possible (as Decret L'Afrique 182 suggests) that the scandal of the Donatist/catholic schism turned some, abandoning the literal-minded gospel that appealed to their countrymen, aside to Manicheism. Finally, Alfaric's L'évolution intellectuelle, for all that its central thesis has been exploded, is rich in its integration of materials drawn from the whole range of A.'s works, and especially from his anti-Manichean writings of all periods, into the biographical enterprise, and on those counts it has not yet been surpassed.

The superstitio in the passages quoted has given scandal to those who cannot accept that A. would ever apply the term--as Alfaric 70n7 seems to have been the first to insist he did--to the Christianity of his childhood. Courcelle, Recherches 64-65, even assumes that util. cred. represents his later attitude (dislocating the awkward word into represented discourse), but that beata v. shows him sharing the attitude of the Manichees in the face of those orthodox Christians who found intellectual inquiry into the truths of faith disquieting. Cf. also BA 13.126-127n; SLA s.v. takes beata v. as innocuous and particular, without reference to any sect. But at all periods, A. saw that the boundary between superstitio and vera religio was not exactly the same as the boundary between Christianity and all that lay beyond. His fastidiousness was, to be sure, greater at Cassiciacum and he became more tolerant (perhaps he would have suggested `more discriminating') when he was bishop of a socially diverse church. For our immediate purposes, it seems clear that a Manichean charge of superstition (see also on 5.6.11) levelled against the religion of A.'s boyhood could have found in the 18 year-old student a sympathetic ear.

1. At ord. 1.8.23, Licentius uses the same word to describe one aspect of Monnica's religion, her distaste at his singing a Psalm-verse in the outhouse.

2. A more conventional attitude is attested at c. acad. 2.3.8 (`si quid superstitionis in animum revolutum est, eicietur profecto'), but it shows the hostility that could have fastened on aspects of traditional Christianity.

4. By way of paying back old debts, in the mor., the Manichees were branded as superstitious (1.29.59, 1.34.74, 2.15.36, 2.16.52, 2.19.68), but even there the possibility of superstition as one of the defects to be found among the orthodox is admitted: 1.32.75, `nolite consectari turbas imperitorum, qui vel in ipsa vera religione superstitiosi sunt, . . . . novi multos esse sepulcrorum et picturarum adoratores.' Cf. Gn. litt. 1.21.41, `ut neque falsae philosophiae loquacitate [see on 1.4.4] seducamur neque falsae religionis superstitione terreamur.' (See ep. 54.2.3 cited below. For further application of the term to the Manichees, see 4.1.1.)

7. At ep. 54.2.3 (400), A. recounts to Januarius the story of Monnica's difficulties adjusting to Milanese church customs (see on 6.2.2) and attributes some of the scruples that arise in such cases to superstitiosa timiditas.

8. At various times, gentiles (6.2.2, `superstitioni gentilium essent simillima'), idol-worshippers, Donatists (brev. 3.2.2), and Jews are also classed as `superstitious.' A.'s program as bishop is to leave superstitio with the old ways: s. Frang. 8.5, `ut vetus superstitio consummetur et nova religio perficietur'. In after years, we also find echoes of Seneca's de superstitione at civ. 6.10-11, the only significant appearance of Seneca in all A.'s work--likely a specific work sought out because of the subject (see on 5.6.11).

loquaces: The use of loquax to depreciate both his own rhetorical achievements and the babblings of the sectarians he now loathed is a sign of how closely those two phases of his life were linked in memory and obloquy: of his own skills, 4.2.2, 8.5.10 (`loquacem scholam'), 9.2.2; of the Manichees, 1.4.4 (see on `quoniam loquaces muti sunt'), 5.7.12, 5.9.17, 7.2.3.

paracleti: Cf. Jn. 14.26, `paracletus autem spiritus sanctus, quem mittet pater in nomine meo'. Decret, Aspects 294: `Mais rien n'autorise à conclure que Felix confonde ce Mani-Paraclet avec le Spiritus sanctus qui, selon la déclaration de Faustus, siège dans l'"Air ambiant", et moins encore avec le Saint-Esprit qui, dans la doctrine catholique, constitue la troisième personne de la Trinité divine. . . . Il semble que Felix considère Mani comme le dernier apôtre promis et envoyé par le Christ et en cet Apôtre parle l'"Esprit-Saint."' Cf. c. Faust. 13.17, `cum enim Christus promiserit suis missurum se paracletum, id est consolatorem vel advocatum, spiritum veritatis, per hanc promissionis occasionem hunc paracletum dicentes esse Manichaeum vel in Manichaeo' (n.b. here `in se'). So also Lieu, Bull. Rylands 68 (1986), 444: `Augustine does not seem to have fully perceived Mani's identification with the Paraclete through his syzygos. Instead he saw Mani's claim purely in terms of the Catholic understanding of the Trinity and the Incarnation. In the same way as in Catholic doctrine the Eternal Son of God had taken on humanity in Jesus Christ, who was therefore called the Son of God, so in Augustine's eyes Mani claimed the title of Paraclete because in his person the Holy Ghost had taken on humanity. . . . On the other hand, Augustine's understanding of Mani's identification with the Paraclete might not have been too distant from the contemporary Manichaean view. In the Manichaean Psalmbook, the Father of Light, Jesus the Splendour and Mani the Paraclete were seen as a form of Trinity.' (The only documented surviving Manichean place of worship, near the coast of the China Sea, presents a Mani who has been transfigured into the `Buddha of Light'; Lieu Manichaeism 212-213 reports that shrine, but further publication of that [and possibly other surviving sites] should be eagerly awaited; unpublished photographs taken by travelers are of great interest.)

non recedebant de ore eorum: Cf. Jos. 1.8, `non recedat volumen legis huius ab ore tuo. sed meditaberis in eo diebus ac noctibus, ut custodias et facias omnia quae scripta sunt in eo.' Empty words (cf. `commixtione syllabarum nominis' and `voce sola'), letter without spirit; the remedy to come in Bk. 7, where curiositas is cured. Where the Joshua text speaks of the volumen legis, the Manis only manage the nomina. J. Ries, Lectio I-II 9, has numerous quotations from the Kephalaion of the Manichees for the role of Wisdom in their thought. In following pages of that article, he provides similar nests of citations for other names/phrases (God the Father, Jesus) instanced in conf. from Manichean sources. Those citations offer confirmation that A. speaks correctly, but show that Manicheism left little permanent trace on the imagination of A.

sol et luna: c. Faust. 20.2 quoted above; at c. Fort. 1.3 A. reports that the Manichees pray `contra solem'. util. cred. 6.13 reports an anecdote from Manichean days of a woman who was irked by Manichean praise of the sun and so crossed to where the sun shone through a window and stomped on the ground, crying `ecce solem deumque tuum calco'.

nec ipsa prima: not themselves the first creatures (Gn. 1.14-18: the fourth day of creation; cf. 13.19.24); cf. lines following here.

in qua . . . obumbratio: Jas. 1.17, `descendens a patre luminum, apud quem non est commutatio nec moment obumbratio' (see on 4.15.25). Sensitivity to the context from which a scriptural echo comes is often essential. It is hard to believe that A. does not fasten on this passage at least in part because of the `father of lights' it invokes, taken in an anti-Manichean sense.

amor meus: This vocative, coming after an extended address to the second person of the trinity, personified as Truth, strongly suggests that A. now turns to address the third person, personified as Love.

nec ea quae non videmus ibi: G-M: `corpora is not to be understood. The reference is to the caelum caeli, the abode of the angels.' We need scarcely insist upon that equation here; the phrase `spiritalia opera tua' above is sufficient reference; cf. Rom. 1.20, `invisibilia dei' (see on 7.9.14).

See du Roy 180n7 for the debate whether the distinction is Porphyrian or Plotinian in its influence on A., confuting J. Pépin on the significance of `Alexandria' in the example A. regularly provides (of a place he has not seen, hence a phantasma): Pépin, REA 86(1954), 102-103, takes the name of the city as a sign of Porphyrian origin, but du Roy counters that the city is mentioned elsewhere (and early: c. acad. 1.4.11-12) under mediated Stoic influence; du Roy also offers a long list of Augustinian texts in which it recurs. du Roy is followed by O'Daly 106-130, esp. on the origins of the terms at 106-107. He well remarks that the history of phantasia is ambiguous, inasmuch as it (O'Daly 107) `can refer to mental faculties or processes as well as to their products': Nebridius at ep. 6.2 uses it in the sense of mental power or faculty--`perhaps the less surprising if we recall the technicality of N.'s philosophical interest in such problems as the possible demonic cause of dreams [ep. 8.] and the question of the soul's vehicle [ep. 13.2]. . . . We can only conclude that A. either adopted a scholastic or doxographical distinction unknown to us, or that he himself adapted the Stoic distinction, referred to above, between phantasia and phantasma to his own technical purposes.' Note that Cicero treated phantasia as an un-naturalized Grecism, regarding visum as the appropriate translation (acad. post. 1.11.40, `phantasian, nos visum appellemus licet' --see on 6.1.1).

Phantasmata are of importance in two ways to A.'s discussion of his Manichean past: (1) the Manichees themselves believed that the crucified Jesus was a docetic illusion, not the real death of the God-man (9.3.6, `ut veritatis filii tui carnem phantasma crederet'; at Io. ev. tr. 50.5, A. interprets the hesitations of the disciples in the presence of the risen Christ as arising from a suspicion that they see only a phantasma, and at s. 75.1.1-8.9, he discusses and dismisses the possibility that Christ seen walking on the water in Mt. 14.24-33 was only a phantasma). (2) A. himself in retrospect believed that the God he worshipped among the Manichees was a wraith of imagination and no substance (4.7.12, `sed vanum phantasma et error meus erat deus meus'). (3) Particularly in c. ep. fund., he applied the term broadly to Manichean doctrines: c. ep. fund. 18.20, 19.21, 32.35, 36.41, 43.49 (`detestemur istam haeresim, quae suorum phantasmatum fidem secuta'). Cf. vera rel. 55.108 (retr. 1.13.1, `maxime tamen contra duas naturas manichaeorum liber hic loquitur'): `non sit nobis religio in phantasmatibus nostris. melius est enim qualecumque verum quam omne quidquid pro arbitrio fingi potest'.

3.6.11

Rather than provide a bald summary of Manichean doctrine, A. sets in motion an impressionistic sketch, juxtaposing representatives of the Manichee, the classical, and the orthodox Christian textual traditions.

peregrinabar: 2 Cor. 5.6, `dum sumus in corpore, peregrinamur a domino.'Peregrinus/peregrinor in this characteristically Augustinian sense occurs only here in the first nine books of conf., except that the last lines of 9.13.37 (`peregrinatio populi tui') anticipate its more frequent use in 10-13: cf. 10.4.6, 10.5.7, 11.2.4, 12.11.13, 12.15.21, 12.16.23, 13.14.15.

versum et carmen: G-M: `According to the Benedictine editors it was upon this passage that Petilianus . . . founded his charge against A. of administering love charms (amatoria maleficia data mulieri). c. litt. Pet. 3.16.19. The identification does not appear certain. A.'s meaning seems to be that he could gain his bread by literary pursuits.' (1) The Maurists were certainly wrong on this. (2) The meaning here may be metaphorical: he could get some real nutrition from the siliquae, but none at all from the Manichee lore.

cantabam: Stories that are told for the sake of the telling, and whose untruth is therefore not penal, and those that are told to be believed, in which untruth therefore is disastrous: at the time of writing conf., neither sort appeals to him, but the former--just then losing its appeal for him--seemed less pernicious.

in profunda inferi: Prov. 9.18, `et ignoravit quod gigantes ibi sint et in profundis inferni convivae eius.' Cf. on 1.2.2, `inferi'; what was hypothetical there is here represented as in some sense true, for he was in hell, but God was there, `interior . . . et superior'.

intellectum . . . quaererem: The dissociation of quaerere from intellegere (see on 1.1.1; this is the only significant occurrence of these terms in Bk. 3) is another mark of the disorder A. sees in this particular quest for wisdom.

3.7.12

It was curiositas, the libido sciendi, that led A. to Manicheism; accordingly, he now (3.7.12-3.10.18) presents a sustained analysis of the attraction that the cult had for him measured by his ignorances of that time. Had he known certain things, the phantasmata of the Manichees would not have held an attraction to his vagrant and concupiscent eyes. The three topics under which he arranges his discussion all recur thematically later in conf. as he shows himself finding alternate solutions to those the Manichees proposed.

A. does not say that the three problems outlined here were the ones for which he found the most attractive solutions in Manicheism, but rather that they were three questions for which he could not provide satisfactory answers based on anything else he knew. (When in after years A. would be accused of retaining a Manichean outlook, the justice of the charge would lie in the way he remained in the power, not of the answers the Manichees offered, but of the questions [e.g., unde malum] on which they insisted with such effect.) The presentation is thus deliberately partial and schematic. The Manichees also attacked orthodox Christianity for deliberate falsification of scriptures, but A. claims that this argument never made any headway with him (util. cred. 3.7).

One important way in which the limitations of this report interfere with our understanding: it was violently contrary to A.'s intentions at the time of writing conf. to do full justice to the appeal the Manichees had for him. He did not concede them the possession even of whatever virtues and strengths had held appeal for him. Hence, although Brown 50, and G. R. Evans, Augustine on Evil (Cambridge, 1982), 13, are quick to emphasize the benefits of the Manichean balm for an aching conscience, in this formal description of his encounter with the Manichees no such ethical question arises: unde malum appears only as an intellectual question to which he cannot provide a better answer. Only later (5.10.18) will he hint at the ethical side of his Manicheism.

In the narrative of his conversions, the solutions to the three problems are uncovered in reverse order to that posed here.

The question itself, pressed in this way, was less obvious to ancients than to moderns and bespeaks the concerns of late antique philosophy (e.g., Plotinus 1.8) rather than those of earlier times. It is insistence on the goodness of God that makes the question a pressing one--indeed, makes a hypostasized `Evil' emerge from the multitude of `evils' that beleaguer mortal life (viz. Plat. rep. 2.379b-c, polit. 273b-e, Tim. 41d-42e). If the question did not originate in gnosticism, it was certainly most at home there.

et utrum iusti existimandi essent: c. Faust. begins with the genealogies and contradictions of the Gospels (and returns to the subject: c. Faust. 2-3, 7.1, 23, and 27-8); the two longest books of c. Faust. (12 and 22) both deal with the vices of the OT patriarchs. See also c. Faust. 6.2, quoted on 3.9.17, `ad futura praenuntianda', below. That the Manichees rubbed a raw nerve is best seen in qu. hept., written when A. was 65 and long secure in his grasp of the Christian approach to the OT. That work bespeaks the intensity with which the literalist approach made the OT a wearying thing for many late antique readers. How was it possible for angels come to lie with the daughters of men and beget giants? Could the ark have been that big? Could four men have built it? How could Lot have treated his daughters that way? (qu. hept. 1.3-5, 1.42) The disparity between the genealogies of Matthew and Luke (see on s. 51 at 3.5.9) rises again, a wound healed but showing scar-tissue, at qu. ev. 2.5, qu. hept. 1.121, and s. 83.4.5 (c. 409). For early treatments, cf. div. qu. 49., s. 1.4.4.

de animalibus: For this characteristically Late Latin use of de with ablative in place of partitive genitive (see Arts 17), cf. 9.5.13, `quid mihi potissimum de libris tuis legendum esset'.

non noveram: The anaphora of `non noveram' connects the three clarificatory expositions: `non noveram malum non esse nisi privationem boni . . . et non noveram deum esse spiritum . . . (3.7.13) et non noveram iustitiam veram interiorem.' There are three later passages where `non noveram' is a reminder of this discussion: in all three cases, it is the second ignorance, of the spiritual nature of God, that is recalled: 4.2.3, 5.10.19, 5.10.20.

privationem boni: The doctrine is Platonic in origin (but A. takes the idea further than P.: see on 7.12.18), and offers the possibility of an aesthetic theory of evil (e.g., nat. b. 16, `quae tamen etiam privationes rerum sic in universitate naturae ordinantur, ut sapienter considerantibus non indecenter vices suas habeant') which escapes the hard antitheses of dualism at the cost of incurring new difficulties.

et non noveram deum esse spiritum: Jn. 4.24, `spiritus est deus.' The word spiritus is avoided when this topic is raised again at its proper place in the narrative at 7.1.1-7.2.3: spiritus is by preference the word that designates the third person of the trinity, and is otherwise used in phrases like spiritus hominis, without again occurring in this predicative sense of God. A notion of a corporeal God is blamed on curiositas at Io. ep. tr. 7.10.

prorsus ignorabam: Much commoner verb for defects of knowledge in conf. than `non noveram': See particularly on 1.20.31, `fugiebam dolorem, abiectionem, ignorantiam', where ignorantia [2] is what the child flees from in search of veritas, only to find error.

tamquam si quis . . .: The conventional rhetorical employment of the three similes from everyday life--which embrace the whole of social life seen in conventional Roman terms, from the camp to the forum to a private household--has a surprising comic turn to it.

hic: hic C D G O1 S Knöll Skut. Ver.: his O2 Maur.
G-M find the latter reading plausible, but if there is a broken antithesis here, the remedy would surely be illic. What strikes the eye is `serviunt' (usually translated weakly: BA, `ils acceptent'; Ryan, `give approval to the latter'): the use is difficult to parallel, but the overtone of moral judgment attracts attention. We are slaves to custom, and sniff at the customs of other times and places.

3.7.14

The Manichean challenge to the OT is treated here so as to suggest that the solution lies in a correct reading of scripture (as at 3.7.12, dealing with their critique of an anthropomorphic God). One interim answer is given, but what is hinted at is a comprehension of the allegorical meaning of OT scripture. This prepares us to see that when A. discovers the distinction between literal and allegorical senses in scripture (at Milan: 5.14.24 and 6.4.6), then he can escape the dilemma the Manichees set for him.

oculos meos . . . non videbam: Cf. `caecus' below. The paradox of the three temptations is that those who yield to them achieve the opposite of what they seek; see 1.20.31.

cantabam: This example, designed to confute the Manichees' criticism, comes directly from A.'s personal experience, not from the conventionalisms that were incorporated in the similes--employed to the same purpose--at 3.7.13.

3.8.15

Cf. the discussion of the temptations/vices in 2.6.13, holding a comparable place in the structure of that book, as meditation on his own lapse situates itself in meditation on the nature of sin. Here too sin is divided in three possibilities (`contra naturam', `contra mores', and `contra morem aut pactum quorumlibet'); it would be fanciful, but possible, to see in sins against natura the concupiscence of the flesh; in sins against the mores hominum, ambitio saeculi; and in sins against the commandment of God, concupiscentia oculorum. To descry such patterns is not to impose them on the author's will, but to see the consistency of his vision.

suae (ad ea): suae C D G O Skut. Ver.: sive S: cui coni. Knöll in order to retain `deus regnator'.
The construction seemed to demand a subject for `iusserit', and to deprecate a double dative with `serviendum est', hence the correction in the MSS. With Skut., take the double dative with `serviendum est'; to follow Knöll requires, as G-M remark, reading an anacoluthon that assumes that the first clause began, `si rex potest', and supplying a potest and a comma after `creaturae suae' in this line.

Both facinus and flagitium are limited in their appearances in conf.; flagitium only in Bks. 1, 2, 3, and 4; facinus only in Bks. 2, 3, and 4. They are thus confined to the books devoted to A.'s moral downfall. Peccatum is far more common, occurring in every book. Elsewhere in conf. the most important application of facinus is to the pear-theft (2.6.12); of flagitium, to his moral lapses (e.g., 3.1.1, `sartago flagitiosorum amorum'). Elsewhere in A., the pair is frequent.

aut una aut duabus earum aut simul omnibus: N.B. that A. does not treat the three temptations as a set of watertight compartments, but acknowledges that they interact in particular situations in different combinations. In the sequence of his own fall through these books, there is a broad pattern of succession from concupiscentia carnis (esp. in Bk. 2) to concupiscentia oculorum (esp. in Bk. 3) to ambitio saeculi (esp. in Bk. 4), but Bk. 2 is the only one of the three in which the predominant temptation reigns virtually alone. Here in Bk. 3 we have already seen how curiositas and libido both had a role in A.'s reaction to the spectacula.

tria et septem: This phrase confirms that he thinks of the earlier phrase (`principandi et spectandi et sentiendi libidine') as a group of three elements: `the three against the three + seven.' 7 + 3 = 10 is rock-bottom certainty even in his Academic days: 6.4.6.

unus . . . unum falsum: G-M: `The phraseology is coloured by the neo-Platonic doctrine according to which to\ e(\n (the One [unum]) is man's true life-centre and sin is essentially a turning away from that true centre to become absorbed in the things of sense, which then constitute a false life centre or substitute for "the One."'

privata superbia: G-M: `from self-regarding pride'; BA: `par orgueil particulariste.' Cf. here `privatis conciliationibus'; the adjective has been dissociated by A.'s time from the verb privare, and is not to be taken as the participle of that verb. Cf. en. Ps. 114.3, `dies meos dico, quos ipse mihi feci privata audacia, qua deserui eum.'

diligitur in parte unum falsum: `There is loved, in one of the parts of the universe, a false One.'

3.10.18

At 3.7.12, A. sketched how the Manichees extorted his assent; now he concludes his treatment of his conversion by sketching some of the doctrines and practices to which his association with the Manichees led him.

manichaeus: Only here does he identify the sect for the first time expressis verbis; it could be inferred by the well-informed reader from the doctrines described as early as 3.6.10, but there must have been early readers for whom it was not obvious.

3.11.19

The first substantive appearance of Monnica in the text; the first hopeful event; the only segment of Bk. 3 introduced with the characteristically confessional mixture of Psalm-ciations (Knauer 133); a calculated conclusion to Bk. 3, expressing in a few sketchy lines both the depths to which he had fallen and a first hint of the medium by which he would ascend.

Monnica: Patricius was baptized and died while A. was in Carthage. The earlier references to M. are mainly indirect, offering a conventional picture of a mother frightened by her son's illness, eager to advance his career, and made anxious by his sexual maturity. There is in this some veiled criticism of his parents' treatment of him (see on 2.2.4, 2.3.6, 2.3.8). Her first appearance here after her husband's death casts her irreversibly in the role that will be hers from now on. Are we to assume a flowering of religiosity in her after P.'s death? Or a new relationship between son and mother (he now an adult of 21, with a profession and a shocking new religion)? A. does not say: he simply presents, then highlights this episode by setting it in a structurally prominent position. As some of the beginnings of books of conf. look back and recapitulate, so some of the endings look forward hopefully (5.14.25, remaining a catechumen and looking for something to turn up; 7.21.27, taking up Paul; 8.12.30, opening a new life).

(habere) mecum: mecum C D G O S Knöll Skut. Ver.: secum Maur.
The text is clear enough: Monnica, now widowed, would normally live in the home of her eldest son (as she did in Italy: cura mort. 13.16, `pia mater . . . quae terra marique secuta est [see on 6.1.1] ut mecum viveret'). When it came to that in Carthage (see below), she at first resisted the idea of living under the same roof and/or of sharing the same table; but she quickly enough gave up that idea, under the influence of her vision and her conversation with the bishop. This is not the customary interpretation here, and the reason is textual: The Maurists here read, with little manuscript support, ut vivere me concederet et habere secum eandem mensam in domo. That reading implied that A. was banished from M.'s house, and most scholars have held this view (Brown 53: `She shut him out of her house'; Mandouze 87, `refusant un temps de recevoir son fils sous son toit'); the correct reading of the MSS, however, makes it clear that it was the other way around--if any such thing happened at all, which `nolle coeperat' makes unlikely.

A contributing difficulty is that of plotting A.'s movements through these pages. 3.1.1 takes him to Carthage to study; at 4.2.2, he is teaching; at 4.4.7, he reports that he began his teaching `in municipio quo natus sum,' i.e., Thagaste; and at 4.7.12, grief-stricken by his friend's death, he flees. The common assumption seems to have been that A. returned to Thagaste and found his mother at first unwilling to take him in. This view is taken as reinforced by c. acad. 2.2.3, thanking Romanianus for sharing his home with A.: `in nostro ipso municipio . . . communicatione domus' (but the same passage shows that A. had been received into Romanianus' house before as well as after the death of Patricius, and in neither case does the language require us to assume A. actually resided with R.); and see on 4.4.9, `paterna domus', for a sign that A. did live at home when in Thagaste in 375/6.

But nothing in Bk. 3 suggests any return to Thagaste or any teaching. It is the book of his wastrel student years; hence this passage suggests a time when M. came to Carthage after Patricius' death. The evidence on M.'s role is ambiguous; from 3.4.7, `maternis mercedibus', it would appear that she `paid the bills' after Patricius' death, but there is no evidence that she ever acted as head of a household (the picture of domestic life at Cassiciacum suggests the opposite). A.'s entourage seems to have depended on the kindness of friends for domicile in Rome, Milan, Cassiciacum, and Ostia. The present passage describes, then, a time when M. thought of insisting on living apart from A., and may even have done so for a brief time, but where and how she might have lived then--on whose kindness she would have depended--we know not.

regula: The wooden rule is problematic, for we are too familiar with wooden rulers to see instinctively the potential strangeness of the object. For interpretation, see S. Poque, Riv. stor. e lett. rel. 30(1984), 480-488: on the basis of Vitruvius 8.5.3 (`chorobates autem est regula longa circiter pedem viginti'), she believes that the instrument was a leveling device used in building aqueducts. The image would then place A. and M. a few feet off the ground, on the `straight and narrow'. The vision is recalled at the end of the garden scene in 8.12.30, where the phrase is `regula fidei', a much commoner phrase in A. and one roughly equivalent to `baptismal creed': see Poque 488n36, quoting symb. cat. 1.1, `accipite regulam fidei, quod symbolum dicitur.' On that reading, the slight elevation is reminiscent of 8.2.5, `de loco eminentiore', whence Victorinus declaimed the baptismal creed (the builders' instrument seems to have had a channel of water running along its length to assist in leveling). Further texts on the regula fidei in A. in the otherwise superseded article of L. C. Ferrari, Aug. Stud. 6(1975), 193-205; see also Ferrari, Aug. Stud. 7(1976), 47-58, and Ferrari, Aug. Stud. 10(1979), 3-17 (where he offers the useful reminder that we never hear of any of Augustine's own dreams).

arridentem: The only place in conf. where laughter has an unmistakably positive character; see note on the beginning of this paragraph.

3.11.20

inquit: This is the first verbatim quotation of another person's specific spoken words in conf. (there are numerous earlier `generic quotations' --the sort of thing someone might say, or the sort of thing everyone at the time was saying).

confiteor: The first `confessional' meditation in Bk. 3, which has been otherwise devoted entirely to the description of A.'s fallen ways.

responso tuo: The dream begets two responsa: here and in 3.12.21 (the bishop).

tam vicina interpretationis falsitate: Bad reading is always close to good, a danger for all commentators.

novem ferme anni: i.e., 373-82; see on 5.6.10 for passages in other works citing the same number (cf. 4.1.1, `per idem tempus annorum novem') and for discussion of the chronological implications.

3.12.21

This first bishop in the text is an African ex-Manichee who had probably been brought up a Christian (`nutritum in ecclesia': he had a Christian mother, but it was the mother who was `seducta' by the Manichees and gave up the son to them) and who had written Manichean books (something A. never did: de pulchro et apto was philosophy, not theology, like the dialogues of Cassiciacum; A.'s strengths were in disputation, which he practiced when and how he could [cf. `nonnullis quaestiunculis . . . exagitassem']). He is also the first of A.'s Doppelgänger as well; like that of Victorinus, his story inserted in conf. mirrors and implicitly comments upon that of A.

G. Papini, S. Agostino (Florence, 1930), 73 and 388, thinks this was Antigonus, bp. of Madauros at the Council of Carthage of 349; Vega quotes Papini but is agnostic; Decret seems nowhere to have broached the question of his identity. Mandouze, Pros. chr. s.v. Antigonus, does not discuss this possibility, and is even hesitant about identifying Antigonus' see with Madauros. Frend, Donatist Church 236: `Apart from Augustine himself and Alypius, successive bishops of Constantine, Profuturus and Fortunatus, were ex-Manichees. This fact did not escape the notice of the Donatists.'

substomachans taedio: A. still portrays Monnica in a less than completely flattering light. (The verb is another apparent Augustinian neologism [Hrdlicka 16], but if so its next appearance in the literature is in a surprising place: Julian, quoted at c. Iul. imp. 6.16, `et substomacharis, si senis Manis soboles nuncupere?' Julian was capable of turning A.'s own words back at him [see on 9.8.18, `meribibula'], but this is more likely a case of a recent word in circulation attested by chance in A. [see on 10.5.7 for another example].)

ita vivas: Knöll (followed by Skut.and Ver.) weakens the punctuation after this phrase to a comma.

filius istarum lacrimarum: Mandouze 86n5 notes the strength of `istarum', and recommends stronger translation than is customary--than, e.g., Ryan's `son of such tears': the sense is something like `son of tears like these of yours'.

There seems no satisfactory study of the readership of Cicero's philosophical works in antiquity and late antiquity, not even T. Zielinski, Cicero im Wandel der Jahrhunderte (4th ed., Leipzig, 1929). A.'s intensity of attention may have been more idiosyncratic than we have assumed. Note, e.g., ep. 118., where Dioscorus takes his questions to A. after finding the masters at Carthage ill-equipped to handle them; and esp. ep. 118.2.9, where A. claims not to be able to lay hand on the relevant texts in Hippo.

On the Bema, see C. R. C. Allberry, Zschr. für die neutest. Wiss. 37(1938), 2-10, and J. Ries, REAug 22(1976), 218-233. Mani died in prison on 26 February 277; the feast celebrated his suffering and death, and therewith the forgiveness of sins (and as such reflected an annual institution from Mani's own lifetime), and finally offered a renewal of the great revelation of the Manichean gnosis.

It might be fruitful to compare A.'s use of the imagery of `weight' (see on 13.9.10) with his repeated use of this verb for leaving one's appropriate `place' in the world in favor of a less suitable one.